Shadow 001 - The Living Shadow

CHAPTER XXX TRAIL’S END

A CAR was rolling along a road not far from Long Island Sound. Harry Vincent was the man at the wheel. He was following another clew.

At Herkwell he had traced the course of Ezekiel Bingham’s car. A man had seen an automobile turn off on the side road to Winster two days ago. Very few cars went that way. The man, an idler in the corner store, had noted the car quite closely. It answered the description Harry sought.

Harry had stopped at a muddy spot along the road and had noted the mark of tires. The tread was of a peculiar design. This had been a valuable discovery. For two side roads led off from Winster. Both were muddy, but no one had seen a car go over either of them.

Harry had made a long examination and had detected the telltale marks of the tread on one of the roads. Hence he had followed it instead of keeping through the town.

This was the road that had carried him near the Sound. Now it ran into another road, and the course turned inland. The new road was well-paved.

Harry had covered nearly thirty miles since leaving Holmwood, but the poor condition of the roads and the stops that he had made consumed much time. It was now past four o’clock.

Harry stopped at a gasoline station, where he inquired if the service man had seen a car like Bingham’s.

The man laughed.

“Lots of cars go past here, friend. I can’t keep track of them all.”

“I thought perhaps this car might have stopped for gasoline.”

The man shook his head.

Harry obtained a road map and consulted it carefully. He traced the course that he had followed from Holmwood. There were several ways to reach the spot where he was now located; and he felt sure that the roads he had taken were not the best.

But if Ezekiel Bingham had been anxious to leave no trail to his destination, the course would have been logical. It was only by careful inquiry and keen observation that Vincent had managed to find the way so far.

“Looking for a stolen car, friend?” quizzed the man at the service station.

Vincent grunted in reply.

“I’m not trying to find out your business,” said the man, “but I might be able to help you.”

“How?”

“Well, if the car came along here, you’ve got to take a chance on tracking it from here on. The road forks up ahead about a mile. Either road would be a likely one. But I’d advise you to take the one to the left.”

“Why?”

“Because it goes past Smithers’s garage. He’s got big signs out, advertising good gas cheap. Pretty near everybody stops that goes by there. What’s more, Smithers has got a cute stunt of listing the license numbers of cars that go by.”

“What is the idea of that?”

“Well, he figures that cars that go by a few times must be using the road regular. He finds out who owns them, and sends them advertising circulars.”

“That is a good idea.”

“I don’t know. Seems to me like a waste of time. But it’s good for you, because if that car went by there, Smithers may have its number.”

Harry thanked the man and gave him leave to fill up the tank of the coupe.

He turned left when he reached the fork and arrived at Smithers’s garage. A stout man, evidently the proprietor, came out at Vincent’s call.

“Mr. Smithers?”

“That’s me.”

“I want to ask you something.”

Explaining that he was tracing another automobile, Vincent gave the man the number of Bingham’s license tags, and asked if he had seen the car. Smithers became suspicious.

“Why do you want to know?” he asked.

“I’ve been sent out to trace it.”

“Why are you after it?”

“I have important reasons. That’s all.”

“What makes you think I have the number?”

“Because I know you keep a record of the number of cars that go by.”

There was a positive assurance in Vincent’s voice that made the garage proprietor think the young man might represent the law. At least, he was sure that Harry had some way of getting information that was not widely known. Still he hesitated.

“What if I do keep license numbers?” demanded Smithers. “There’s no law against my doing it, is there?”

“Certainly not,” Harry replied. “And there’s no law against your giving me information from your list.”

“I guess you’re right,” admitted the garage man.

Harry produced a ten-dollar bill.

“Maybe you could use this,” he said casually.

“Wait a minute.”

Smithers went to the office of the garage. He returned in a few minutes and collected the ten-spot.

“The number is there,” he said. “Went by day before yesterday.”

Hot on the trail, Harry urged his car along the road. He was entering wooded country, and was well away from the nearest town. Five miles beyond Smithers’s place, the road curved to the right and joined a broad highway where three automobiles were passing.

This required a consultation of the road map. Harry pulled to the side of the road and studied the situation. The map showed that it would have been shorter and more convenient to have taken the right fork of the road than the left if any one had desired to reach this highway.

There would have been no reason for Ezekiel Bingham to have chosen the longer route, Vincent argued, as both roads came to the same turnpike. Why, then, had the old lawyer gone to the left?

There was but one answer to the question. Somewhere between Smithers’s garage and the turnpike, Bingham had turned off the road.

Going into reverse, Harry swung back to retrace his course. He had a hunch that the road he wanted branched off to the right. A little later Harry found such a road - a dirt lane that twisted off toward a woods.

Stopping the car, Harry alighted and examined the dust. The lane was dry; there were no tire tracks of the tread he sought, but it was possible that the marks had been obliterated. At least, the road was worth a look-see.

He drove along the road through the woods. Coming to a stream, Harry found a bridge to be crossed alongside of an old ford. A mile more and the road ran into a paved highway.

This perplexed Harry. Which way should he go? The road map offered no help in this quandary.

Before choosing his course, Harry decided that it would be wise to return along the lane.

He drove back to its starting point, stopping occasionally to search for traces in the dust, but none were visible.

He continued along the lane until he came to the bridge again. At that moment he observed that the temperature had risen on the motor gauge until it had nearly reached the boiling point.

“Forgot all about the water in the radiator,” he mused. “This bus has been traveling pretty fast lately. I must have boiled some out.”

He peered over the edge of the rail on the bridge and saw the glint of a tin can.

“That will do,” he thought. “It’s pretty small, but I can get plenty of exercise.”

Descending to the stream, he retrieved the can and filled it with water. As he stopped at the ford, he whistled with delight. At the edge of the stream appeared the mark of one of Bingham’s tires - a mark pressed deeply in the muddy edge of the brook.

Disregarding the heated radiator, Harry backed his car from the bridge and drove down to the ford. He crossed the stream, and as he ascended the farther bank he could make out the marks of automobile tires that led to the right.

Harry piloted the car along a makeshift road, moving slowly to subdue the noise of the motor. The thickness of the trees and bushes made the pathway more evident, although it was merely two grooves along the ground. Branches brushed the top of the coupe.

The car arrived at a dilapidated fence, which was broken by an opening. There were no bars across, but Harry felt uneasy about passing that barrier.

Instead, he turned the car to the left and drove some forty yards along an open space beside the fence.

Pocketing the ignition key, Harry closed the windows of the coupe and locked the doors. With cautious step he approached the opening in the fence. He followed the tracks of Bingham’s car to sight a house among the trees.

Caution was vital. Harry realized that as he moved onward.

A noise caused him to seek refuge behind a tree. He could see the house clearly from that point - an ancient two-story structure that looked like an abandoned hunting lodge.

A man was standing on the porch, blue smoke curling upward from his lighted cigar - an elderly man who looked very much like Ezekiel Bingham!

The man stood there a few minutes; then turned and went into the house. Coming from behind the tree, Harry obtained a new angle of vision. In front of the house stood an automobile - a car that he recognized immediately. There now could be no question of the man’s identity.

Harry smiled with triumph.

His quest was ended.

He had trailed Ezekiel Bingham to his lair!